


The Reaper's Guide to Squatting

by dagas isa (dagas_isa)



Category: Dead Like Me
Genre: Gen, Humor, Snark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-10
Updated: 2006-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-08 07:10:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dagas_isa/pseuds/dagas%20isa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The literature available for helping newly-made reapers is...not helpful to say the least.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Reaper's Guide to Squatting

_Congratulations! You haven't won the lottery. Quite far from it. You're dead, and to make things even rosier, you were your reaper's golden ticket to the big chocolate factory in the sky. So now you've got a new life, a new career, and now you've got to find a place to stay with no money whatsoever! So what is a newly minted reapear supposed to do? Why use your resources to get what you need! Remember, even the dead were alive at one time and had a place to stay that they don't need today. So take advantage of your reaperly duties and squat!_

George almost threw the pamphlet down after reading just the introductory sentence. "No! I'm not reading this! This is sick... we're supposed to stay in some dead guys' apartment!" For a second, she considered throwing her chocolate ice cream cone on the ground, as her undead appetite deserted her. It seemed like even dead some bits of living squeamishness stayed with her. How could she even think about squatting in the apartment of a dead person? Wouldn't it be haunted. Or what would they live like...the thought of living in someone's hellhole didn't exactly appeal. The pamphlet got shoved into a pocket, hopefully never to see the light in George's presence again.

"Well, it didn't seem to bother you that much back at that first place." Mason said, taking the first licks of a plain vanilla cone.

The memory of looking at that accountant's appartment sent a shudder through George. "What do you mean that didn't bother me?! Besides, that place was nice. What if I end up living in some random shithole?"

"Look, that's what the pamphlet's for. You can tell what an apartment will be like by how the person dies. Come on, give me a cause of death, and I can tell you exactly what their apartment is going to be like."

There was a challenge that George couldn't refuse, and she thought of the most improbable death she could. "All right, I'll take you up on that. Say someone dies choking on a toothpick. What does that say about their place?"

For a second, as those clear blue eyes moved around, George thought she had him stumped, but before she got so sure, Mason answered. "Neat freak, probably one of those obsessive-compulsive people. Sterile most likely. Not much decoration, but plenty of chemicals to get high off of."

"Is that all you think of?"

"Not much else to do in a place like this, now is there? Come on, try another one."

George thought, discarding everything she thought of as being too common, when memories of sitting around and watching Saturday Morning cartoons came to her. "What if someone slipped on a banana peel."

"A banana peel?" Mason could barely get out the words for laughing. "No one ever just slips on Banana peels."

"But what if they did? Hypothetically speaking."

Wandering eyes indicated the thought processes of Mason's addled brain George quickly learned, sort of like a light on the computer that tells the user it's busy with something else. Those eyes stilled, and George quirked her head to the side, expecting some brilliant answer, probably dealing with getting high somehow, but still brilliant. "That's got to be one hell of a shithole if you ask me. I feel sorry for any reaper who has to live there. One more."

The last cause of death, George had no problem thinking of as the may wind rustled her hair a bit, and she lifted up a hand to deal with the errant strands. "A gust of wind." Death by a tiny little gust of wind had to be more impossible than slipping on a banana peel, but Mason remained unfazed. In fact, his whole coutenance seemed to light in a frenzy of thought.

"Why you know someone?"

"Huh?"

"You know someone who just died splat at a gust of wind? Because I'm in the market a new place myself. And someone so sick as to just plop down on a sidewalk dead from nothing but a gust of wind has to be sick enough to have prescriptions everywere."

"Is it always about getting high?"

"George, that's another lesson you have to learn about this job. There's always got to be something to live for. Come on, we're going to be late for my 2:00."

Undead life should come with instructions, George realized. And that sarcastic manual came back out of the pocket, the closest thing to instructions for life or afterlife she'd be likely to recieve.


End file.
